


The Dragon and The Phoenix

by amagiri



Category: DBSK|Tohoshinki|TVXQ
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 02:30:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amagiri/pseuds/amagiri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yunho and Changmin are partners fighting against the android horde.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dragon and The Phoenix

10:00. The time limit appears in blue on his visor. It hasn't started counting down because he's still plugged in.

"Do you understand the mission, Dragon?" a voice says into his ear through the helmet's communication system.

"Yeah, I got it," Yunho replies. He's to take a series of self-tunneling explosives and drop them off at strategic points on the field. The explosives aren't particularly volatile until detonated by the remote control, meaning that they can be jostled around in transit, but he'd rather avoid confrontation just in case. He relays this sentiment to the voice from earlier.

"Understood." As usual, Changmin is insistent on formality even though Yunho hasn't launched yet.

"Have you sent the drone up, Phoenix?" Yunho asks, mindful of the code name.

"Yes," Changmin replies promptly. "There's activity on the field."

"How many?"

"Roughly ten. I'll find a way around them."

The drone hovers over the field, observing it through a lens. In the console room, Changmin views the feed it sends him. The computer is tracking movements and automatically displaying red circles over questionable objects on the ground. There's a ring over something that turns out to be a funny-looking shrub, and with a sigh, Changmin presses on its circle to make it disappear. The software has its bugs, but he supposes that's part of why he's here.

The rest of the targets are androids. They appear to be scouting for intruders, and judging by their methodical back and forth, they haven't discovered the convoy headed towards them yet. They have no aerial drones of their own, Changmin surmises.

He has the feed zoom in on one android. He frowns, then switches between the others one after another. They're all ordinary foot-soldier types. It's suspicious that they're walking back and forth out in the middle of nowhere, but if they really are guarding something important, then he would expect a few heavy-armor types at least.

"Are you two ready? We're almost to the launch point." It's Kyuhyun.

"Ready," Yunho and Changmin affirm at the same time.

"Good. Launching in one minute."

Yunho feels the vehicle turn in an arc, coming to a halt only after making a half revolution. The door in front of him starts to slide open, flooding the room with golden light and red dust. Red circles start appearing on his visor, their size indicating the proximity of the androids on the ground. Blue ones show up next, pointing out where he's to set the bombs.

"30 seconds. Get in to position," Changmin tells him. Yunho backs up, inserting his feet into a pair of tracks near their start. At the other end, the track unfurls itself mechanically until its rails are protruding out past the door. Yunho crouches down.

"10. 9. 8..." Changmin counts for him. The track angles itself higher, pointing towards the hazy sky. When the count hits zero, Yunho sees bright flashes on either side of him, and then he's accelerating, his speed ramping up five times faster than he could running as a normal person. He hears the thick plug coming out the back of his suit click as it disengages, falling behind him on the track with an audible thud and then next thing he knows, he's soaring through the air, able to see the field below at a lower vantage point than Changmin's drone. The circles in front of his eyes shift as he flies, staying trained on their respective targets.

The clock in the corner of his vision has started ticking. Yunho feels himself slow at the top of the arc he's traveling in, and soon he's starting his descent.

"Let's go." He pulls his arms to his sides and tilts his head down. His body accelerates. There's a number in front of his eyes steadily decreasing with his altitude. He lets himself reach terminal velocity and hovers at that speed for a few more seconds.

"Dragon," a warning voice mutters in his ear. 

"I know." Fighting against the air howling around him, he pulls his legs up to his chest and right away starts to feel his speed change. He holds that position while the ground fast approaches when suddenly, the numbers indicating altitude turn red. Around his body, there's a faint blue haze, and he knows it's time.

Completely calm, he does two flips in the air and then sticks the landing with both feet and a hand on the ground. The blue aura fans out the split instant before he impacts, slowing him to a safe speed. Around him, a thick cloud of dust kicks up.

"Quickly," Changmin says, voice urgent. "They're converging."

Yunho takes off, heading for the largest blue circle. The red ones grow bigger as the androids approach, but their current array of sizes suggest that he has at least four minutes before he's encircled by them. The countdown clock reads 8:43.

It takes him fourteen seconds to reach the first drop point. Reaching behind him, he slides a finger down his spine, the special motion trigger for the armor's storage compartment. He feels a tiny bomb roll into his hand, and when he grasps it, he finds that it's not much larger than a cherry.

He brings it around to his front. There's a small bump protruding out on one side. He depresses it, then immediately drops the bomb to the ground. It makes a soft thud, and after a few seconds, it starts to roll on its own. When it seems to find a good orientation for itself, it halts in place, and then Yunho hears a mechanical whirr start up. The bomb is drilling itself into the ground.

"First one in place," he reports to Changmin. He doesn't waste any time heading for the next targeted area.

"Take this route," Changmin tells him. An arrow point indicating the suggested path appears on Yunho's visor. It saves the closest set point for last, probably so he can drop it on the way back to the convoy.

"Expecting trouble?" Yunho asks as he changes direction.

"They're heading for you in clusters. It'll be hard to fend them off," Changmin explains. "You can clear the third drop point before they reach you this way."

It takes a minute to get to the next set point, and Yunho already has the bomb in hand when he gets there. When he presses the button, it rolls out if his palm and hits the ground. He waits for the drill to start, then continues on his way. A minute later, he repeats the process with the third bomb.

"I see them," Yunho reports. They're still off in the distance, the desert heat appearing to warp their metallic bodies, coming in three groups. The guidance arrow has him run past them on the right. He starts down the path, but after a minute, he still can't shake his uneasy feeling. The visor shows the paths of the clustered red circles slowly begin to arc toward him.

"I’ll be cutting it close," he informs, although it's more of a complaint. If it came to a confrontation, it would be impossible for him to take on that many without draining the suit's battery to critical levels. He only has five minutes left.

"You want cover?" Changmin asks.

"Would be nice."

Back on the convoy, Changmin flicks a switch at the far left side of his console to change the drone to manual pilot. When he does this, his chair slides backwards and a control column folds out from under table. A visor slides out from the top of the headset he's wearing and covers his eyes so that he can no longer see the room. Finally, the screen blips on when the drone's visual feed transfers from the console.

Changmin takes the control stick in hand and has the drone pick up speed. He does a quick sweep over the androids, assessing the situation more closely, then swoops over Yunho before forcing the drone into a sharp U-turn. He hovers the UAV a meter off the ground, camera trained on Yunho heading straight for it. While his left hand leaves the control stick to brush over some buttons on the side, he speaks. "In position. Say when."

Yunho looks to his left. His visor does some quick calculations, then displays that the androids are only fifty meters off. When he faces the drone again, he tilts his head down, keeps running, and commands, "Now!"

At once, the drone barrels towards him. They've used this trick dozens of times before. Yunho's been told that it looks like a bizarre game of chicken, but he's not dumb enough to try and compete with Changmin when he's the only one at risk.

The drone does a barrel roll, probably just Changmin showing off, but Yunho doesn't crack a smile. When Changmin deems the distance to be about right, the drone slowly begins to climb in altitude. It changes angle slightly, flying between Yunho and the androids, then opens up its bottom hatch. White orbs drop one after another like pearls on a broken necklace, but as soon as they hit the ground, they detonate. The drone flies past Yunho, and right after he's hit with a huge rush of heat.

When Changmin runs out of heat bombs, he doubles back around for the second course. He's blocked the androids from locating Yunho through infrared sensors, so next is visuals. He turns the drone upside down and presses the button that opens the top hatch. Black orbs the size of softballs tumble out and begin to spew smoke during their descent.

On the ground, a dark gray haze starts building up around Yunho. Crap, Changmin's dropped them too close. Around him the bombs hit the dirt with a thud and continue on with their task undeterred. Meanwhile, Yunho's suit can't filter the smoke fast enough, and it starts to get in his eyes, irritating them and making them tear.

"Damnit!" he curses, forcing his eyes to stay open. The distraction will buy them a couple minutes at best, so he has to stay focused. He can't see anything in this damn smoke, but the visor is aware of his location and is still pointing the way.

Changmin gets the drone back into observation position and reassesses the situation while the control column tucks itself under his console once more. The androids are running for the heat and smoke, but they're more dispersed compared to before. Simple soldier builds like those on the ground right now only have basic programming; they guard and they charge. It's easy to confuse them because they have no comprehension of what deception is.

He opens the front hatch on the drone. One large white ball rolls out and falls through the sky, and right when it hits the ground, it detonates and sends a huge blast of heat up. Changmin watches the androids slow as their sensors pick up on the one lone heat signature. The androids move at a reduced speed while their networked minds chatter in binary until finally a few break off and head in the direction of the drone while the others continue on their way. Divide and conquer. A simple strategy.

On his side, Yunho feels the wall of heat subsiding. He bursts out of the thick gray cloud of smoke, eyes and lungs burning, and heads straight for the third drop point. In his peripheral vision he sees the red circles have gotten smaller, although not by as much as he would like. "What are they doing?" he asks.

"They've split up. None of them are headed for you just yet."

Fourth bomb set. The fifth point is close, and he's already got the bomb in hand. Changmin warns that the closer group of androids are headed towards him, suddenly attentive of his moving heat signature. The drone isn't stocked with offensive weapons, and it's fresh out of bombs, so there's nothing to do now but hope he can outrun them.

After he drops off the sixth and final bomb, the route arrow on screen changes direction.

"Go this way," Changmin tells Yunho. "Carbonara boy will bring the convoy around."

"Hey, use my real code name thanks," Kyuhyun interjects over the communication system.

Yunho rolls his eyes at the two of them but then focuses his energy into pushing himself for the last leg of the run. The suit only has a minute and a half of battery left, but it should be enough as long as he doesn't get caught up in a skirmish. Changmin is probably thinking the same.

Off in the distance, there's a shimmering black speck kicking up red dirt that the arrow is pointing to. The red circles are all off screen now, located somewhere far beyond the edges of the visor. Relief sets in.

\------

Changmin is there at the hatch to meet Yunho.

Yunho pushes up his visor and glares at the other man. "What the hell was that?!" he shouts now that he's in the clear.

Changmin glares. "I did exactly what you told me to." His tone is cold.

"You almost dropped a smoke bomb on me. I couldn't see shit!"

"Well I'm sorry I can't control _the wind_!"

"Yeah? Then what about running me that close to them?"

At the other end of the room, the rest of the team watches them go at it.

"Shouldn't we break them up?" Henry suggests cautiously, but everyone just shrugs. He's the newbie on the immediate support team, only promoted to his position a couple of weeks ago. Confused, he looks from person to person, but none of them seem interested in breaking up the impending fight.

Beside Henry, Kyuhyun chuckles. “No, just leave them be.”

"Fuck you, Jung," Changmin hisses, and that's how the conversation ends, with him and Yunho storming off in opposite directions right after.

“You’re in the room next to theirs, right?” Kyuhyun asks Henry, a perverse grin on his face. 

Henry cocks his head to the side. “Yeah, why?”

"Oh, just wondering.”

\------

Yunho sits on the roof of the base and takes a swig of beer. The night sky is tainted with a red haze. It's been that way since his birth. He's seen old footage of deep black dotted with tiny white specks and a single pearly orb, but he doubts it will ever be that way again.

There's an unopened beer at his side. How nice that the military understands exactly what kind of rations they need.

Yunho hears the door to the roof open and close, but he doesn't even turn his head to look. Changmin sits down next to him and takes the extra beer without a word.

The first few minutes are tense but silent. They play tag with furtive glances, one looking over at the other before their gaze darts back to the red sky. Eventually Changmin gets tired of the game and sighs before turning his attention to popping the cap on beer. Yunho watches him tilts his head back and drink down the still-chilled beer out of the corner of his eye. His gaze wanders from the other man's eyes and down to lips pressed around the round opening of the bottle. He gulps and looks away. Changmin pulls the beer away and lets out a content "ahh."

"Nice night, huh?" Yunho jokes.

Changmin scoffs. "As long as it's not another 3 am mission, I'll take it." They're talking again. Yunho relaxes his shoulders and shifts a little closer. Changmin doesn't move, wordlessly permitting the invasion of his space. They're both really such typical stupid guys, unable to communicate their emotions forwardly.

But even though Changmin is still awkward about saying things like "I love you," even in private, it's not hard to understand him. He sits with Yunho in the med bay when he needs stitches after combat, insistent on being there even though Yunho is used to a little wear and tear. And he's always watching during battle. Always. Every vital sign that the armor can monitor, he sees. Every enemy on the field. Every tactic, every possibility.

"You wanna quit?" Yunho asks. Another joke.

"No," comes the usual reply. Changmin looks straight at him, eyes full of the emotions he can't vocalize. "I don't trust anyone else to do the job."

"Good." Yunho smiles and leans forward. "Me neither." They kiss, long and slow, soft and sweet.

\------

The threat of android attack has been around since before either Yunho or Changmin was born. They learned all about the history of the war at the academy, and then promptly forgot it. All Changmin remembers is that it’s been roughly forty years.

At sixteen, Changmin graduated from secondary education early. It wasn't a particularly spectacular feat; these days the military is hurting for fresh blood, and the government does all they can to push them out faster. The coursework is easier, and more kids skip grades. The government allows them to do their mandatory service early, and most of the early graduates do.

Following graduation, Changmin entered the military academy. His parents weren't pleased, but during times of war it's all expenses paid, and he couldn't argue with a full-ride scholarship. His father was a teacher, but he didn't make as much after the government had cut his pay in line with their policy of favoring the war effort over education. He knew his parents preferred more academic pursuits, but he didn't really know what to do with his life, and most occupations, even civilian ones, revolved around the war anyway.

At orientation, the training officers took one look at him, tall but scrawny-looking, and immediately placed him into support instead of soldier. He used that to appease his parents, saying that he wouldn't be doing the direct fighting on the field. It only half-worked.

He met Yunho four days after settling into the dorms. Yunho was five doors down the hall, had been training for two years, and that day they just happened to pass by each other. Changmin often walked with his eyes on the ground, shoulders hunched like he was exhausted, and that day he saw a pair of sneakers come into view on his way to the bathroom.

"Wait." Yunho placed a hand on Changmin's shoulder as they crossed. Changmin flinched, looked at the hand first, then the face. The expression he was met with was stern.

Yunho dropped his hand back to his side. "If you're gonna give up, then just do it now. There's no room here for a pretty boy who just wants to mess around." He walked off. Changmin stared after him with wide, disbelieving eyes.

Once he got over his shock, Changmin stormed away in the opposite direction. Who did that guy think he was? He seethed. He was probably some hotshot soldier-in-training who thought he was superior for being put on the field. Another dumbass who thought a little more muscle was all the military needed.

He raged about the incident to Kyuhyun, his new roommate and friend, later that night, but secretly, he was just a little flustered too. No one had ever in his life called him pretty.

\------

The morning after the mission, Changmin and Yunho enter the strategy room together, but they quickly split apart without a word or glance to one another.

Changmin wanders over to Henry and greets him first. “Good morning,” Henry replies, nodding his head slightly. He rubs at his neck, face feeling hot all of a sudden.

"Are you okay, Henry?" Changmin asks the newbie. His face is all red. An allergic reaction perhaps? Food allergens should have been recorded on the officer profile and checked by the staff before ordering rations, but mistakes happen sometimes. He hopes it’s not serious.

Behind Changmin, Kyuhyun laughs. He comes around and hooks an arm around Henry's neck, reeling him closer.

"Aw he's okay,” Kyunhyun explains. “I think you forgot why no one wanted that room though." Next to them, Yunho is busy going over the armor status with Donghae and Eunhyuk, the two in charge of mechanical and electrical repairs, respectively, while the convoy is mobile. The pair pause and snicker at Yunho's expense, but with one stern look, they get back to business.

Kyuhyun turns back to Changmin, whose ears have turned as red as Henry's face.

"Oh, I see," Changmin replies, completely at a loss. "C-carry on then." He turns and walks off somewhere.

Henry turns to Kyuhyun and frowns. "You didn't have to do that."

Kyuhyun shrugs. "He's fun to tease. Also, it’s payback for when they made me bunk with Sungmin until I could get my own room far away from them."

A half hour later, the team gathers to go over the status of the convoy. Fuel, food, and the latest mission are discussed. Yunho and Changmin are seated next to each other, and somehow Henry's gaze keeps wandering back to them.

The self-tunneling bombs were detonated at 2200 hours last night. One failed. The internal sensors in the drills reported unusually dense material, too tough to be simple compacted dirt, at a depth of roughly 100 meters. Since the requisition team hasn't gotten to the site yet, they have no idea what the androids were guarding. Changmin voices his earlier concern that there were only basic types on the field. Their presence suggests either a decoy sent by the androids higher in rank, the ones built with superior AI, or that whatever was bombed was not of great importance.

Yunho and Changmin don't speak a word to each other the entire meeting. There are some reports to sign off on, and Yunho slides them over without so much as a glance while Changmin receives them with the same kind of nonchalance. 

They don’t seem like the two making love last night, their joined movements rattling otherwise silent walls and intimate words coming through them muffled but full of passion. Still, they're not the same as yesterday afternoon either, openly getting in each other's faces and spitting venom. He's been with the team for only two weeks, but Henry is still surprised that he overlooked a relationship with so much fire.

Then again, they seem to make great efforts to temper the flames while working. Once the meeting is over, Changmin simply nods to Yunho, then gets up out of his seat and walks away with Kyuhyun to discuss a software upgrade for the console room.

By lunch, Henry finds a bag of earplugs hanging off his doorknob.

\------

Changmin had always been the shy, quiet kind of kid, but that had also made him observant when it came to people. One of his instructors figured this out early on and decided to train him as a strategist, one of the categories included under the umbrella term support. He spent several hours a day analyzing footage of androids, breaking down how they interacted and what their AIs were like. The military often takes wrecked androids off the field and tries to decipher how they're programmed, but even the basic ones have so many variables and communicate over network so incessantly that they can't predict anything with great certainty.

Androids are not built with the same ideology as humans. After nine months of gestation and a couple decades of education, a person is considered ready for work, but even getting to adulthood is a huge investment of resources. Conversely, lower-level androids like the ones they fought are machined and wired up in four days. They are kept simple-minded and designed with ease of manufacturability in mind. As a result, they are both numerous and disposable. 

Their superiors take longer to make, with stronger metal, better joints, and a more robust AI program, but the time to go from scrap to functioning machine is still nothing compared to a human. The list of advantages go on and on. The ability to mold new parts out of metal salvaged from deactivated androids. Their frames are stronger than bone. They-

"Stop, stop," Yunho had interjected when Changmin was trying to explain all of this one night. They were in Yunho's room at the academy, his roommate Donghae off pulling some prank he'd later be disciplined for. Months before that, Changmin had come to conclusion that Yunho was not so much of a egotist as a perfectionist who held everyone else to the same high standards as his own self. He had been stressed and disappointed by friends leaving at the time he had met Changmin, and he had since smoothed things over by sneaking his dongsaeng extra rations for a week. Bribery had always been a great icebreaker, after all.

Changmin frowned. "But I wasn't finished."

"You're making me depressed," Yunho whined. "How are we supposed to win against them?" He sighed and fell backwards on his bed.

"It's not that bad," Changmin replied with a shrug. "The bulk of their population isn't that intelligent. They're kept dumb because it's easier to pump them out." The androids try to make up for it by networking, but in Changmin's opinion, that's like making ten monkeys type out Shakespeare instead of one.

"Even the higher levels lack the ability to innovate," Changmin told Yunho. Some can add new variables, new choices, as they're observed, but the androids don't do R&D, and they don't hypothesize or experiment. Their intellect is just well-practiced mimicry. 

"They often copy our tech, but wide scale implementation takes months."

Yunho scratched his head. "So you're saying we have to stay one step ahead?"

Changmin nodded. "That's how we win."

\------

The team decides to stop off at a nearby military base to restock on rations and fuel. Their travels are unpredictable, and Yunho considers these base visits to be the closes thing to a relaxing weekend. Cities have cropped up around all the major bases as civilians flock to be near them. Humans have been increasingly forced to evacuate remote areas due to lack of security. Many have abandoned farms, and as a result, food scarcity has become a larger issue as of late.

Yunho pushes all of that aside and tries to focus on the bright side instead. The cities aren’t as glamorous as he’s been told they were during peace time, but it’s still preferable to the endless sea of desert they’ve been driving through for the past day and a half. And besides, it’s not like his convoy is any sort of amusement park.

He finds Changmin is in the console room. When they’re mobile, Changmin spends very little time in his own quarters. He sleeps in Yunho’s room, the two of them pressed together on a tiny twin-sized bed, and when he’s got free time, he prefers the console room.

The console room is Changmin’s space. He’s the only one who knows the controls, and he’s the only person who ever needs to be in here. Yunho knows Changmin has installed all sorts of unauthorized software on the computer there, mainly video games to play with Kyuhyun. 

There’s also porn, lots of porn.

“Really, in the middle of the day?” Yunho asks, watching with mild interest. The man on screen slaps his partner on the ass hard enough to make a loud crack, but the other man just throws his head back and moans.

Changmin shrugs. “Wasn’t that interesting anyway.” He closes the window to prove his point.

“We’re two hours out from the base,” Yunho informs as he ambles over to the console. Changmin purposefully slides his elbow off the edge of the armrest to allow Yunho to come up to him and lean against it. 

“How long are we staying?” Changmin asks. He switches the screen to something far more mundane, a map showing the convoy’s route and estimated remaining time.

Yunho drapes an arm across Changmin’s shoulders and leans. He curls his hand so that the tips of his fingers brush against the other man’s collar. “Well…” When they ghost against skin, he hears Changmin’s breathing hitch. “The convoy is due for an inspection,” Yunho considers aloud, “so I’ve got that scheduled while we refuel. It’ll probably take a day and a half at least.”

Changmin leans into Yunho’s touch and hums his approval at their schedule. They’ve already done the debriefing for their last mission, so they should get some much-needed free time to roam the city. “Have something in mind?” he asks, although it’s more of a statement. Yunho’s fingers have ventured further down his shirt, running over the expanse of his chest.

Yunho smiles innocently when Changmin gasps at the flick of his nipple. “I was hoping you’d like the aquarium,” he says with a cheeky grin before spinning around and straddling Changmin in the chair, his split legs hanging over either armrest. “But in the meantime, we’ve got a couple of hours to kill.”

\------

As expected, they’re deployed as soon as they clear inspection. The whole process takes three days instead of one and a half, and Yunho suspects that the combined efforts of Changmin and Kyuhyun were behind the mysterious cat screensaver malware that had suddenly spread on all the convoy machines and delayed their launch.

Still, it is a welcome respite for the crew, Yunho included. Lately they’ve been traveling directly from mission to mission, stopping off at minor military bases only to refuel and resupply. He knows it wears on the crew, but luckily, they are a close-knit bunch.

Yunho spends his extra time, of course, with Changmin. Sometimes they fight about work-related issues in their personal lives, and every so often their private skirmishes will bleed into their jobs, but as soon as he steps off the convoy, he feels everything but anticipation lift off of him. He and Changmin tour the city, stopping in to the aquarium to see sea turtles and human-engineered goldfish with see-through skin. They eat food, _good_ food, then settle into a plush queen-sized bed at a three-star hotel at night.

The three day break passes like a dream, and he’s back on the road sooner than he’d like. They’re given orders as soon as they’ve passed inspection. After launch, Changmin locks himself in the console room for an hour or two. He always does this, claiming he needs to reacquaint himself with the controls and make sure no one has touched his stuff, but in reality, it’s to hide his melancholy. Civilian life, although often teetering on the verge of martial law, is so peaceful in comparison to what they’ve got.

The next mission is out in the desert again. On one hand, Yunho is glad civilians will be out of the way, but on the other, being limited by battery power always makes him nervous. The cities have inductive charging built into their infrastructure, which would give him precious additional time, but the government doesn't bother installing such technology where there aren't clusters of people.

He and Changmin are alone in the room while he gets suited up. Changmin helps him snap the back plate into place, then holds him from behind. Yunho leans into him.

"What is the military doing sending us out here anyway?" Yunho asks. There aren't many of these augmented suits in existence, so every mission is highly classified and usually of great importance. Today, they have two main tasks. One is to send out a tunneling sensor to measure soil composition underground. The military scientists, who were also the ones that had proposed the initial mission, were very interested in what could wear down a diamond drill bit at only a 100 meter depth and had made a request for further data after Changmin had given them his report.

The team’s other task was to destroy the dud bomb from their last mission. It’s widely known that it’s dangerous to leave human technology for the androids to pick up and reverse engineer. Even the soil sensor has the ability to self-destruct given certain conditions.

Yunho gets all that, and yet he's still not sure what they were targeting in the first place.

Changmin hums, considering his original question. "Maybe looking for the queen?"

The androids have a strict social hierarchy, with no chance to upset the ranks due to physical and mental limitations made by design, and Changmin routinely compares them to ants. There was a period of time where Changmin wanted one of those ant tanks where their tunnels and behaviors could be observed, but Yunho managed to dissuade him by telling him what a disaster it would be if they managed to break out. After that, Yunho would catch Changmin watching videos of colonies instead, which was still gross but decidedly the lesser of two evils.

In terms of mental capacity, the lowest tier are the salvagers, miners, and assemblers. Changmin would put them below worker ants if such a level existed in nature. They lack any discernible AI, instead repeating the motions of their tasks in a constant, programmed rhythm. In that sense, they're more like typical machines than androids, but Changmin includes them because they can be accessed and controlled through a common network.

Beyond that are the scouts. Like worker ants, they routinely venture out of their stronghold. Tasked with finding useful salvage and evaluating the surrounding landscape, they have an assortment of sensors built in but lack any sort of weaponry to defend themselves. They are dispatched without the expectation of returning, simply sending back information until the moment they’re destroyed. Although this tier is strictly nonviolent, humans become skittish when they are spotted nearby because they are often an omen of things to follow.

After that are the soldier classes. They deviate from the ant hierarchy, instead splitting into three or four different types but still in varying gradations of strength and intelligence. Unlike soldier ants, they will travel far from the stronghold for offensive purposes. Changmin likes to apply military ranks to them. 

Last of all is the fabled queen. To be honest, no one is sure if such a position even exists, and there’s debate about whether there is even a necessity for it. There is a large gap in the military’s knowledge about what makes the androids tick. They’ve been able to decrypt parts of the androids’ programming, but ultimately the trail always runs cold.

Yunho thinks the queen theory is something silly, maybe soldiers hoping that if they just bomb the right spot the war will end, but Changmin seems taken with the idea so Yunho holds his tongue. And what does he know anyway? At times, he feels like a blunt instrument hearing Changmin talk about behavioral patterns and programming. Yunho is directly in combat, and he's learned to rely on quick instinct. On the other hand, Changmin is the overseer, and, both literally or otherwise, he has a different perspective.

And if Yunho feels dull, then everything about Changmin is sharp; sharp wits, sharp eye, sharp-tongued. Hell, his cheeks even jut out a bit more after puberty. Yunho lips quirk into a smile. His boyfriend has always had the brains, but the beauty took a little while to come to a full bloom.

"What are you so happy about?" Changmin asks. He rests his chin on the shoulder plate of Yunho's armor and hides his face in Yunho's dark hair.

Yunho shrugs, but he's still wearing that mysterious grin. "Just thinking that I pick well," he replies. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Changmin's head tilt to the side, eyes curious and questioning.

The door to the room slides open, and Changmin steps back quickly. Yunho _ahem_ s and returns to adjusting his armor.

"Don't know why you bother trying to keep an open secret," Kyuhyun quips from the entrance.

Changmin looks away. "Did you need something?"

"Yeah, it's almost time. Get into position." The doors close once more.

Yunho turns to face Changmin, who briefly moves away to grab his helmet. Changmin rubs at some invisible scuff mark on its white surface, then gives Yunho a kiss before sliding it on for him.

"See you later," Yunho says with a smile, like someone leaving home for a safe, standard office job. Their clasped hands are the last to part. 

Launch goes smoothly. Through the drone, Changmin watches Yunho soar through the air. He's always wanted to try that, but the two of them would be discharged immediately for going joyriding with some very expensive equipment.

"Head for the original drop point," Changmin informs. He types the coordinates in manually, and a blue circle appears on screen. “We will send the soil sensor down at the first bomb location from our previous mission. The scientists are hoping that it will be able to analyze particulate matter created by the bomb.

“Our number one priority, however, is to destroy the dud. The military has lost communication with it, so we’ll have to blow it up manually. First, we will head for the fourth drop point.” He types in another set of coordinates. “We’ve received another tunneling bomb and had it reengineered to detonate when it comes within 10 meters of its target. It will start a one minute countdown clock when in range, which will give you enough time to get away.”

"Understood."

There's not much to see in the desert, even at the drone’s high altitude. It’s a flat expanse of red dust bordered on all sides by eroded mountains. He observes the feed carefully, inspecting objects of interest. Again, there are basic foot-soldiers traversing the area back and forth, but there are only ten of them.

Something’s off. Androids tend to bolster their frontier after an attack, but from what Changmin can see, they haven’t made any changes to their behavior. Unease churns in his stomach. He doesn’t like when the androids aren’t easily predictable.

"Dragon, I advise you to be on guard," Changmin says.

Yunho is already on the ground and running. "Have a bad feeling?"

Changmin leans forward in his seat and stares long and hard at the screen. "Yeah." He always hates this next part of the mission. Changmin watches as the androids stop and chatter amongst themselves. He imagines them talking to their network, requesting precise coordinates for every local android, and soon discovering that the new heat signature in range is not one of them. Soon enough, they abandon their programmed walking patterns and begin to make their way for Yunho.

There’s something odd about their movements though. Low-ranking soldiers typically go for the “shortest distance is a straight line” approach, but today they’re showing more intelligence. A few of them are circling around behind Yunho while the rest charge forward as normal.

To use this kind of tactic is a sign that there’s a more intelligent android in the area. Changmin searches the screen for something he may have overlooked, a red circle that he had dismissed as a shrub, but there’s nothing.

He thinks back to their last mission. Perhaps there was something underground that he couldn’t see, something that the bombs couldn’t fully penetrate. Maybe the more advanced AI was hiding down there. It worried him to think about what kind of infrastructure they might be establishing under their noses.

However, his theories would have to wait until later. He had to focus on the mission at hand. He wanted the data the soil sensor would give him to prove himself right or wrong, but it would have to wait.

“Yunho, I think you should come back to the convoy,” Changmin tells his partner. He would have contact with the closest android in about half a minute. “We can have the nearby base arm the drone before we come back.”

“I can make it,” Yunho insists. 

Changmin protests. “These androids are connect with a smarter AI. It will be harder for you to outrun them the closer you get.”

There’s a pause over the communication system. Yunho is considering his words. “At least let me drop off the bomb,” he compromises. “It’s just one android before the drop point, right?” Hesitantly, Changmin agrees to the terms.

Changmin catches himself holding his breath as on screen, one red circle converges upon the lone blue one. He zooms in on point where they intersect. He hears Yunho grunt and watches him get thrown back on to the ground. In his seat, Changmin clenches his fists. He hates this part too.

Yunho rolls on to fours, narrowly missing a strike. Rather than hands and fingers, the android has steel hammers at the end of arms that hang below the knees, a divergence from their generally anthropomorphic construction. Its design is a simple way to achieve greater physical force.

Over and over, the android attempts to hit him, but the weight of its own arms slows down its ability to raise them for a new swing, and Yunho is able to avoid its blows easily. He continues to roll around on the ground, all the while feeling vibrations from the strikes on either side of his head, until he finds an opening to get to his feet. At once, he charges the android and knocks it back. It staggers, and it becomes apparent that its heavy arms are making it difficult to stabilize itself while mid-swing.

The android takes a couple steps back, then falls flat on to its back. It’s almost comical, but Yunho is totally serious. He activates his laser strike, then sends his hand plunging down straight in to the android’s head, deactivating it for good. The countdown clock in the corner of his visor momentarily flickers as the suit recalculates how much time he has left to complete the mission given the charge left on his battery.

"Yunho, abort the mission," Changmin urges. "Come back and recharge. They'll have you boxed in soon."

"No," Yunho cries. "I'm almost there."

Changmin slams on the console, causing Yunho to flinch when the sound comes through the communication system. "Don't be stupid," Changmin hisses. "You can't fend off that many with only five minutes left." Internally, he berates himself for not putting in a request to upgrade his drone while they were on base. 

“Turn back!” Changmin half pleas, half orders. He hits the console again, ignoring the pain while his knuckles turn white from clench them so hard.

Yunho doesn't respond, keeps charging forward silently, and in his ears Changmin is letting loose a string of expletives. The red circles form an arch in front of his eyes as the androids converge on him. He’s got the bomb right in his hand, and the blue circle is so much larger than the others. _I can do this_ , he thinks to himself. He pushes himself harder and harder, determined to reach the set point before the androids can reach him. 

Finally, the blue ring is in front of him, right there at his feet. He’s got only 15 seconds before he’s intercepted. Yunho opens his palm to reveal the bomb. Hurriedly, he presses the button until he starts to hear mechanical clicks over his own heavy breathing.

On his visor, the number 1:00 appears. 

“What the-“ he gasps. The same sentiment echoes over the com system.

:59. Yunho’s mind is blank. “What do I do?” he cries. “Is it malfunctioning?” It’s supposed to be tunneling. On screen, the digital ring encircling the bomb flashes in alternating green and red.

“Just drop it!” Changmin orders. “Get out of there now!”

Yunho lets the bomb fall from his hand, then turns and runs from the androids. Meanwhile, Changmin’s fingers are flying across the keyboard. He knows military tags individual pieces of equipment for tracking purposes, and he’s also aware that it’s possible to control them remotely in the case that cargo is hijacked. The process is long and convoluted so that the technology can’t be manipulated easily, but if he can just get to it… 

“I need permissions,” Changmin barks to Kyuhyun over the communication system. “Single-use expendable B0966312. Tell them it’s modified for proximity detonation.” He pulls up the remote access program. PLEASE HOLD. VERIFYING IDENTITY, the screen reads in bright red letters. Cursing to himself, he pulls down his visor and allows it to run a retinal scan.

“Shit!” Yunho cries, grabbing Changmin’s attention.

Changmin leans in to the console. “Dragon, status update?”

“I think they’ve picked up the bomb,” Yunho informs. His voice is panicked. “I thought it was just a software bug, but my distance isn’t increasing.” Changmin’s eyes flick back to the field monitor. The flashing green and red circle indicating the bomb is far from the drop point. Instead, it’s trailing behind Yunho at roughly 30 meters.

“I’m trying to deactivate it remotely,” Changmin tells him hurriedly. He’s passed the retinal scan, now he needs a higher ranking officer to approve his access and have technology support give him the passkey.

“Commander Kwon has signed off on our activity,” Kyuhyun interjects. “We’re talking to tech now. I’ll connect your line so you can hear them.”

Changmin slams his fist on the console. “I need it right now!” He can’t believe it’s come down to this. He’s shaking in his seat. 15 seconds left and he has to wait on other people. 

“Phoenix,” he hears from support. “The key is wp234jk82k, all lowercase.”

“Can you fucking repeat it slower?” Changmin snaps, struggling to type and recall what was just said at the same time. Support says it once more, and Changmin finally gets into the system. A couple of windows pop on his screen, one showing him information about the bomb, including its modifications, and the other is a command prompt.

**taskkill /f /pid 5093**

“Changmin-ah.” 

The call of his name snaps him back to reality. Next thing he knows, a thunderous roar fills his eardrums. Immediately following that is the sound of debris everywhere, whipping around in the air and raining down on the dust ground.

His ears are ringing.

"Yunho?" Changmin asks, voice quivering. “Were you going to say something?” he says it quietly, maybe too soft to be heard over the noise outside, and so he repeats it.

No response. "Yunho." He calls his partner's name once more, then again, then again after that. He says it over and over, calling louder with each repetition. Yunho knows he’s the impatient type, loathe to explain things more than twice. He knows that Yunho knows.

Changmin’s hands are trembling against the console. "Yunho!" he screams uncontrollably. “Yunho!” He stands up, tears his headset off his head, and throws it forcibly against the console. He covers his face with his hands, whole body shaking. Tears begin dripping into his palm and down his wrists, but he doesn’t feel them. _It can’t be, it’s not true, there’s no way-_

"Changmin!" Kyuhyun barks into his ear, dropping the code name for once. "Get a hold of yourself! He's alive! You have to get him out!" Changmin's head snaps up to look at the vitals on screen. Blood loss at 9%. Armor heavily damaged but mostly intact aside from breaches on the chest and right thigh. Heart rate is elevated due to heavy physical exertion but dropping after lapsing into unconsciousness.

It's up to him now.

“Understood,” he speaks. His tone is commanding, lacking the hysteria from just a minute ago. He gets back into his chair and puts his headset back on. 

Changmin balls his hands into fists hard enough to dig his nails into his palms, but he doesn't notice the pain. His hands are still shaking. He's never had to do the real thing because Yunho never fails. They've done simulations, but after his first combat experience he's learned that the psychological weight isn't the same.

“System override Dragon. Initialize Phoenix,” he orders.

Suddenly, the screen in front of him goes black. He panics, wondering if something has gone wrong, but then he hears the mechanical clicks of his headset changing shape. The visor moves over his face. He feels tiny pinpricks all along the top of his head as the computer connects to his brain. And then his body falls back in the chair, completely limp.

In his field of vision, he doesn't see the familiar console anymore. He's looking at a battlefield, sideways because Yunho has fallen down. He twists Yunho's head to look down and sees the gash on his thigh, a piece of shrapnel still embedded inside. Changmin yanks it out and forces the injured leg to kick, checking that the armor can still respond despite the damage.

3:00. 2:59. 2:58. The clock is still ticking down. 

"Phoenix is active," Changmin reports. He wills the armor to move. Yunho's arms pull closer to his body, then press against the ground to lift him. The same happens with his legs until he's pulled into a crouch.

"Good," Kyuhyun responds. "Phoenix, you have to run back to base."

"His leg is badly injured," Changmin protests.

"It's his leg or his life. We'll move the convoy closer for pick up."

The armor surges Yunho forward, pushing off like a runner at the start of a race. It was initially engineered as a pilotless suit, but relaying commands wirelessly stunted reaction times on the order of milliseconds, a big deal when dealing with close-range combat. The R&D team revamped the tech and pitched it to the military as augmentation armor for a solider, the Dragon, while keeping the original framework as a fail-safe, the Phoenix.

The headset intercepts commands from his brain, reading the chemical signals it sends to the rest of his body, and digitizes the orders before relaying them to the armor. When Changmin wants to lift his hand, it's the armor's that moves instead, precise down to the position of the fingers. And now he's telling himself to run, his mind carrying the weight of a different body.

He feels like he is Yunho. He sees what Yunho would see and hear what Yunho would hear, information all recorded and transmitted by the suit's own monitoring equipment. He's moving Yunho's body as his own. But at the same time, Changmin can't feel the pain that Yunho is in, and the armor isn't hindered by the physical damage it's received. It's Changmin's own overwhelming emotions that fill in the blanks, make him run as hard as though it were his life out on the battlefield.

1:50.

"There's one incoming 30 meters to your left," Kyuhyun reports. A blue arrow extending from the center of the visor to his peripheral appears in his vision. Changmin turns his head until the arrow points straight ahead and sees one android running for him. He knows he has to make this quick. The more he moves and the longer it takes him to get back to the convoy, the more Yunho bleeds.

At his command, a blade hidden in the armor's lower arm extends from its sheath, protruding out over his hand. He runs straight for the android, and right as they're about to collide, Changmin grinds his feet into the dirt and braces for impact.

1:20.

It smashes into him, pushing him back a couple meters until they both come to a halt. It reaches for his neck, but Changmin cranes it out the way. He shoves the machine away, then kicks it to the ground. He pulls his arm back, as though he's about to make a punch, but the thing sweeps his legs out from under him, and he falls backwards.

The android is on him immediately, and they roll around in the red dirt, vying for dominance in their scuffle. It feels like the transmission delay is hurting his reaction times, and although Changmin has had combat training, he doesn't have the field experience that Yunho does. Both of these issues are making it difficult for him to make a quick getaway. 

Changmin activates the armor's force field momentarily, and it sends the android flying off him. The shockwave drains his power, causing the countdown clock to flicker wildly as a result. When it stops, it settles at :40. He scrambles to reach the android before it can recover. Changmin wields his blade and in one strong, fast movement, smashes it down into the android's neck. Through his headset, he hears metal screeching loudly against metal. The blade goes all the way through until the tip is embedded in the ground. He jerks his arm to the side to dislodge it, not caring about how it tears through the android and decapitates it.

:25.

"You have to move!" Kyuhyun shouts into his ear. A red arrow that points to the convoy appears on the visor. Its trajectory is shifting slightly on screen, likely because the convoy is still moving towards him. Changmin takes off running. He forces the armor to move as fast as it can go, still 200 meters to cover according to the visor. The physical exertion has brought Yunho's blood loss up 19%.

Just a little more, he thinks desperately.

:17. The convoy is heading straight for him. The hatch on the front vehicle is being opened on the side, getting ready for his entry.

:12. :11. :10. His body is generating adrenaline despite its inactivity, fooled by the armor's transmissions, and it seems to be getting to him. Time feels slow. The armor's movements feel slow, too slow. 

:07. Faster, faster, faster! he cries in his head, but he's already going at max. Blood loss is at 22%.

:05. Changmin lunges for the platform protruding out. His shoulder hits the floor of the platform, and then he goes sliding, armor and Yunho's body still moving in the direction opposite of the convoy.

:03. He deploys the arm blade and jams it into the platform. The armor jerks violently before coming to a halt on the vehicle.

:01. Through the visor, he sees people running to grab Yunho.

"Disengage Phoenix!" he shouts. His vision goes dark for a second, then suddenly he's back in the control room. He's sweating and breathing like he's just run a marathon, his brain tricked into thinking it had been his body doing all that fighting and sprinting. Control over his limbs take a few more seconds, and for a moment it's like he's having night terrors, paralyzed by some invisible, ominous force.

As soon as he regains control of his hand, he reaches up and tears the headset off, tossing it carelessly onto the console in front of him. He jumps out of his seat and rushes to the door, throwing it open violently.

"Where is he?" Changmin cries, eyes wide with an urgent fury.

Kyuhyun grabs him by arm. "He's in the med bay. They're about to do surgery on him." The convoy is only equipped to do basic surgical procedures, so anything serious will have to wait until they get back to base. Changmin hates the thought of that.

"Come with me," Kyuhyun urges. "I'll take you to the observation room."

\------

Yunho doesn't wake up for three days. Surgery had revealed a grab bag of injuries. Aside from needing stitches for his thigh, he had also suffered a severe concussion, cracked half of his ribs and broken his left arm. He had suffered burns in places where the armor was weak, one of his lungs had collapsed, and the doctors had also warned about ringing in his ears.

The suit's black box had revealed a split second decision to activate the impact-absorption field, but it hadn't been fully charged at the time of the blast. Changmin knows the armor was engineered to take heavy hits but apparently nothing like a close-range high explosive. Still, he's aware of what the outcome would have been without it.

Changmin spends little time away from Yunho's bedside while he waits. He skips one shower and only rushes back to his place for the second at Kyuhyun's urgings. The rest of the team visits throughout the day, checking in on Yunho and bringing food to remind Changmin to eat. He's always in the same spot when they come, the visitor's chair pulled up flush to the hospital bed. Changmin holds Yunho's hand tight. It's still warm.

The third day, Henry visits by himself. Donghae's goaded him into bringing flowers on behalf of the team, but he's accidentally filled up the water too high and splashed some on his pants. Embarrassed, he tries to hold the vase over the wet spot.

Yunho's been placed in a one-bed room within the intensive care unit. When he came with the team yesterday, Henry had tried to ignore the frantic beeping and the rush of nurses next door, but it had been like Changmin didn't hear any of it. He was in daze; from shock or from lack of sleep, Henry wasn't sure of.

Today, Henry stops right outside the door. He thinks he hears talking inside. Cautious and just a bit hopeful, he pokes his head into the room.

Changmin is bent over the bed, arms full of Yunho. His whole body is tense, as though he wants to hold the other man tighter but can't because of his injuries. Yunho has his one good arm wrapped around Changmin's side, but there's no strength in it. He looks pale and tired, and there's a mess of tubes and wires scattered around him.

Still, Yunho is trying his best to smile. He's whispering words into Changmin's ear, running his hand over Changmin's back. Somehow Yunho has determined that he himself is not the one in need of comfort in spite of what he's gone through.

Henry places the vase outside the door and leaves quietly. The team will come running once they find out Yunho is awake, but for now, he thinks he'll give them some peace.

Back in the room, Changmin sits at the edge of Yunho's bed. Their hands are still intertwined, neither of them sure this is reality just yet. Changmin wipes at his eyes and manages a small smile. Yunho turns his head weakly on his stiff hospital pillow and takes a good look at Changmin. It's the first time Yunho's seen his stubble so long.

Yunho closes his eyes but then reopens them as soon as he catches himself. He's just so tired; he needs sleep, but a part of him is afraid too. His whole body feels oddly numb, as though he's been pumped full of drugs. He squeezes Changmin's hand tighter to distract his thoughts.

Later, after the team has come crying and making a ruckus in the otherwise quiet ICU, Changmin tells him the reality of his situation. He won't be getting out of bed any time soon, but luckily all medical expenses will be covered by the government.

Yunho is surrounded by various cards and balloons. Somehow, the team had thought it would be a great idea to arrange them on the bed as decoration. Changmin smiles and plucks them off one by one, reading each one aloud before placing them on the night stand instead. When he gets to Donghae's, however, his face scrunches up. Donghae has never had the most legible handwriting, and as it turns out, he had written a long ramble about their academy days that extended to the back of the card. With some difficulty, Changmin reads it anyway.

"What will happen to them?" Yunho asks.

Changmin sighs. "Probably reassignment. It would a waste of talent otherwise." It's a painful truth, but most of the team has been with them from the start, and a few even before that.

"And you?"

"I'm not going anywhere," Changmin assures, his tone resolute. Yunho knows how stubborn Changmin can be, and he has no doubt that the other man will keep his word one way or another.

"You wanna quit?" Changmin asks. There's no hint of a smile this time.

In response, Yunho takes Changmin's hand into his own and runs his thumb over the back of his palm. "Can't."

Changmin shuts his eyes tight and lowers his head. Then slowly, he nods. "Okay."

**Author's Note:**

> I got the idea for this fic back when Android was about to be released, and I've been holding on to it 80% finished for roughly a year now. On a more random note, I liked the idea of a countdown clock, inspired by Evangelion, and I imagine Yunho's suit to be white like in the tokusatsu movie Casshern. 
> 
> Thanks for reading. ^^v


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